Mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital cameras, MP3 players, and other portable electronic devices utilize LEDs for background illumination. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional diagram of a portion of a conventional indium-gallium nitride (InGaN) LED 10. As shown in FIG. 1, the LED 10 includes a silicon substrate 12, an optional buffer material 13 (e.g., aluminum nitride), an N-type gallium nitride (GaN) material 14, an InGaN material 16, and a P-type GaN material 18 on top of one another in series. The LED 10 also includes a first contact 20 on the P-type GaN material 18 and a second contact 22 on the N-type GaN material 14.
One drawback of the LED 10 in FIG. 1 is that the surface area of the N-type GaN material 14 is limited, and thus only a limited amount of InGaN material 16 may be formed thereon. The limited surface area of the N-type GaN material 14 thus may limit the total power output of the LED 10. Also, the planar surface of the LED 10 may limit the light extraction efficiency of the LED 10 because it is believed that the light extraction efficiency may be generally enhanced via surface texturing and/or roughening. Accordingly, several improvements in increasing the light extraction efficiency of LEDs may be desirable.